Vice President, Business Systems, Central Technology

The Team

Across our work in Science, Education, and within our communities, we pair technology with grantmaking, impact investing, and collaboration to help accelerate the pace of progress toward our mission. Our Operations organization provides the support needed to push this work forward. 

Operations consists of our Brand & Communications, Central Tech, Finance, People, Real Estate/Workplace/Events/Facilities/Security (REWFS), Strategy & Operations, and Ventures teams. These teams provide the essential operations, services, and strategies needed to support CZI’s progress toward achieving its mission to build a better future for everyone.

Our Central Tech team provides technology and security support for CZI and our grantees. We believe that Engineering, IT and Security are most effective when in sync and learning from each other on a daily basis.  Across our three pillars of Infrastructure, Security, and Grantee & Partner Support, we enable our teams to achieve their goals faster and more securely. We leverage technology to automate manual processes, constantly innovate to optimize operations, provide first-class support, and build solutions to enable the scale and execution of our business partners' strategies and initiatives.

The Opportunity

The Vice President of Business Systems will serve as the executive leader responsible for the product vision, strategy, governance, and execution of CZI’s enterprise platforms across Finance, People, Grants, Contracts (Legal), and Brand & Communications.

This role is accountable for evolving CZI’s systems ecosystem from distributed, domain-specific tools into cohesive, product-driven, mission-aligned platforms. Success requires moving beyond system administration or vendor-led implementations to design intuitive, end-to-end user experiences, reduce operational friction, and enable clear, data-driven decision-making across the organization.

As a key member of Central Technology’s leadership team, reporting to the Senior Vice President of Central Technology, the Vice President of Business Systems will shape organizational strategy, strengthen cross-functional collaboration at scale, and build a world-class internal tools organization. This leader will treat business systems as internal products, emphasizing product excellence, reliability, and seamless user experience to transform how a complex, mission-driven organization operates at every level.

What You'll Do

• Define and own the product vision and multi-year strategy for business systems, ensuring internal platforms are designed around real user needs and aligned with CZI’s organizational priorities.
• Lead the evolution of Business Systems into a product-led internal tools organization, with clear product ownership, discovery practices, prioritization frameworks, and roadmap discipline.
• Treat enterprise platforms (e.g., Workday, Salesforce, Coupa, Greenhouse, Ironclad) as foundational infrastructure, designing cohesive workflows and user experiences on top of them rather than relying solely on out-of-the-box functionality.
• Build, lead, and mentor a high-performing, multidisciplinary team spanning product, program management, engineering, analytics, and systems leadership.
• Establish governance frameworks and cross-functional decision-making models that support product strategy, tradeoff clarity, and long-term platform health across Finance, People, Grants, Contracts (Legal), and Brand & Communications.
• Serve as a trusted executive partner to C-level leaders and domain executives, translating organizational strategy and operational needs into clear systems and product direction.
• Oversee systems architecture, integration strategy, and data flows to ensure platforms are scalable, secure, compliant, and designed for long-term evolution.
• Drive end-to-end workflow design, automation, and simplification, reducing manual effort while improving usability, transparency, and adoption.
• Champion change management, continuous feedback loops, and measurable improvement across all enterprise systems.
• Act as the primary executive voice for Business Systems within Central Technology and in cross-organizational strategic planning.

What You'll Bring

• 20+ years of progressive experience across enterprise systems, internal platforms, digital operations, or technology leadership, including 5+ years in executive leadership roles.
• Demonstrated experience owning product strategy for internal tools or platforms, including defining user personas, mapping end-to-end workflows, setting roadmaps, and driving adoption and satisfaction — not just implementing or administering systems.
• Proven leadership of enterprise platforms at scale (e.g., Workday, Salesforce, Coupa, Greenhouse, Ironclad), with the ability to design thoughtful abstractions, integrations, and user experiences on top of core systems.
• A track record of leading large-scale systems or platform transformations, delivering measurable improvements in usability, efficiency, and organizational clarity.
• Strong technical fluency across business systems, integrations, and data architecture — able to partner deeply with engineers, architects, and vendors while maintaining product-level accountability.
• Experience shifting organizations from reactive, request-driven system support to product-led operating models, introducing roadmaps, feedback loops, success metrics, and clear ownership.
• Exceptional executive stakeholder management skills, with experience influencing and aligning C-level leaders on priorities, tradeoffs, and long-term systems strategy.
• Strong understanding of business operations across Finance, People, Grants, Contracts (Legal), and Brand & Communications, and how systems can unify and enable these domains.
• Proven ability to build and scale inclusive, high-performing teams that balance delivery, quality, and user empathy.
• Outstanding communication skills, with the ability to translate complexity into clarity for technical and non-technical audiences.

Compensation

The Redwood City, CA base pay range for a new hire in this role is $297,000 - $424,600. New hires are typically hired into the lower portion of the range, enabling employee growth in the range over time. Actual placement in range is based on job-related skills and experience, as evaluated throughout the interview process. 

Better Together

As we grow, we’re excited to strengthen in-person connections and cultivate a collaborative, team-oriented environment. This role is a hybrid position requiring you to be onsite for at least 60% of the working month, approximately 3 days a week, with specific in-office days determined by the team’s manager. The exact schedule will be at the hiring manager's discretion and communicated during the interview process.

Benefits for the Whole You 

We’re thankful to have an incredible team behind our work. To honor their commitment, we offer a wide range of benefits to support the people who make all we do possible. 

• Provides a generous employer match on employee 401(k) contributions to support planning for the future.
• Paid time off to volunteer at an organization of your choice. 
• Funding for select family-forming benefits. 
• Relocation support for employees who need assistance moving

If you’re interested in a role but your previous experience doesn’t perfectly align with each qualification in the job description, we still encourage you to apply as you may be the perfect fit for this or another role.

#LI-Hybrid #LI-Onsite